I find out now, too late to vote for him, that we had a
Transcendental Meditation candidate on the presidential ballot last
month. His name was John Hagelin and he represented the Natural Law
Party, a group that believes if enough of us meditate transcendentally,
our problems—crime, disease, the national debt, whatever—will get
fixed. Their sunny outlook is reflected in the name of one of their
enterprises, the Maharishi Heaven on Earth Development Corporation. I
read about all that and immediately fall into a time warp.
It's 1970 and as a born and bred Baptist I have the uneasy
suspicion that I'm making a fool of myself. A faculty colleague and I
have decided to become Transcendental Meditators. We've been told to
bring a clean white handkerchief, some cut flowers, and a piece of fresh
fruit to our initiation ceremony.
I bring three Man-in-the-Moon marigolds from my wife's garden, a
clean white hanky from the drawer where I put things I don't use any
more, and a banana from Hinky Dinky.
I'm met at the door by a young man wearing a short haircut and a
beatific smile. He takes the flowers, the hanky, and the banana, gives
me a pamphlet on TM, and asks me to have a seat with the others.
My faculty colleague is already there and we give each other
twitchy little grins and look around to see if anyone knows us. We've
gotten into all this because the sixties have just ended, Nixon is still
president, and we've been told that TM is a way to gain Inner Serenity
that will lead to Cosmic Harmony and world peace—a kind of heaven on
earth.
That sounds pretty good to me even though the Baptist Church I grew
up in warned against heaven on earth. But it also warned against
dancing, playing cards, and going to picture shows on Sunday. The
loudest warner was a meditative deacon who usually dozed, and sometimes
snored, during the sermon, but who was our champion in theological
disputes with the Methodist crowd that hung out in the barber shop.
"There's nothing in the Bible about John the Methodist," he'd say, and
he had them there.
While I sit there waiting to give TM a try, I wonder what they're
doing with my wife's Man-in-the-Moon marigolds, my clean white hanky,
and my banana. I imagine it must be something I won't be able to
understand until I achieve Inner Serenity.
When my turn comes, the assistant guru leads me into a small room
with a large picture of the guru-in-chief, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,
looking serene to the point of drowsiness. On a table are a little
pile of rice, my hanky, and the marigolds. But no banana. The
assistant guru says something in Sanskrit, wraps some rice in my hanky
and tells me to put it in my pocket. Then he gives me my very own
personal mantra, a word I'm not to reveal to anyone or it won't work. I
am to repeat it silently over and over with my eyes closed until I empty
my mind and achieve Inner Serenity.
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The Truth, Mainly
He leads me through a trial run right there, but I have a hard time
keeping my mind empty. I keep wondering what they've done with my
banana. But after 20 minutes, I am pleasantly relaxed and when the
assistant guru taps me on the shoulder and tells me to open my eyes,
it's like being awakened from a nice little nap.
"Did you find Inner Peace?" he asks. "Do you feel at one with the
Cosmos?"
I yawn and nod.
"Do you have questions?" he wants to know.
"What happened to my banana?" I ask.
"What?"
"The banana I brought," I say. "You gave me back my clean white
hanky with the rice inside, and my wife's Man-in-the-Moon marigolds are
here on the table, but what happened to the banana?"
He looks cosmically disturbed for a moment.
"Oh," he says. "The piece of fresh fruit. The volunteer staff ate
it."
I pay the $75 initiation fee, vow to meditate for 20 minutes twice
a day the rest of my life, promise never to reveal my very own mantra,
and leave. They keep the Man-in-the-Moon marigolds.
I meditate pretty openly for about four days—until my kids start
making fun of me.
"Where's daddy?" my wife asks when she gets home from work.
"He's in the basement meditating," my daughter says. Then she giggles.
"Where's Sherman?" my wife asks. Sherman is our saintly
Dalmation-Beagle who's always been at one with the Cosmos. He dozes at
my feet while I meditate and sometimes he snores.
"He's down there with daddy," my son says. "He's meditating too."
Then I hear them all laugh.
Later I find out that my very own mantra is exactly the same as my
faculty colleague's very own mantra and we give each other twitchy
little grins.
All that's made me a closet meditater. Now when I feel the need
for serenity, I pretend to doze off. To fool my wife, I even make
snoring noises. Then I empty my mind and wait for heaven to descend.
Satterfield is a college professor and writes as a means of discovery.
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